Stanley Miller

Stanley Lloyd Miller ( born March 7, 1930 in Oakland, California, † 20 May, 2007 National City, California ) was an American biologist and chemist. He is a pioneer in the search for the origin of life. According to him, the Miller experiment is named (also Miller - Urey experiment ), one of the most famous attempts of science.

Life and research

Miller studied at the University of California at Berkeley and later at the University of Chicago. The famous Miller experiment he conducted in 1953 while still a student, together with Harold Urey, who is inspired by. Here, the assumed methane-containing primordial atmosphere and the primordial ocean of early Earth were in an experimental apparatus simulated and electrical discharges, lightning simulated suspended. After only a week, a significant part in this experiment had converted (about 15 %) of methane in other organic compounds, including several amino acids occurring in proteins. This was thus the first to demonstrate that basic biological building blocks of life can be generated among potential ( abiotic ) natural environmental conditions.

This result was the starting point for many similar experiments that have been carried out since then. So could now be shown that, important building blocks of life are also produced in atmospheres of different composition which are chemically less reducing or even neutral, as they are today adopted partly for the primordial atmosphere. Although the yield is low under such conditions, in general, on the other hand many biomolecules are produced, which were not detected in the original experiment described by Miller and Urey. Even under simulated space conditions, the production of organic molecules has now been proven.

After spending a year at the California Institute of Technology (1954-1955) Miller worked at Columbia University until 1960. Since 1960 he was a professor at the Department of Chemistry of the University of California at San Diego, where he still dealt with the biochemical basis of the origin of life.

Some publications Millers

• Stanley L. Miller: A Production of Amino Acids under Possible Primitive Earth Conditions. In: Science. Volume 117, No. 3046, May 15, 1953.
• SL Miller, HC Urey: Organic Compound Synthesis on the Primitive Earth. In: Science. Volume 130, 1959, pp. 245
• KE Nelson, M. Levy, SL Miller: Peptide nucleic acids rather than RNA june have been the first genetic molecule. In: PNAS. Volume 97, 2000, pp. 3868-3871.